Magazines for accommodating propellant charges or cartridges are well known. Such magazines have been used in combination with bolts, nails, projectiles, etc. for commercial uses as well as for weaponry.
Magazines in the form of coilable flat metal strips which have a plurality of holes for accommodating cartridges are well known as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,103, issued to Gawlick, et al on Jul. 19, 1977. In that patent there is shown a strip which is deformed in the area of the holes to form cartridge holding collars which have spring-back resilience. Another form of coilable flexible metal strip magazine is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,169, issued to Gawlick, et al on Jul. 4, 1978. In that patent the strip is provided with a clamping means associated with each hole for positively clamping the cartridge to the strip. The clamping means includes a tubular casing for each hole which is press-fit to the cartridge and is connected to the strip. Tools employing magazines of this type are unwieldy in that the ammunition strip trails from the tool both at the inlet to the firing chamber and at the outlet from it. As a result they are awkward to use in locations of limited space.
Powder-actuated tools are known which employ disk-type magazines which carry a number of cartridges or propellant charges projecting from a planar carrier, which is moved into firing position by rotation of the disk. Such a device is shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,375,269, issued to Bosch et al on Mar. 1, 1983.
Disk-type magazines must of necessity mount the cartridges or charges relatively close to one another in order for a reasonable number of firings to be permitted with one loading. It has been observed that occasionally when one of the charges is fired one or both of the charges adjacent thereto may also be fired by the uncontrolled propagation of the explosive forces through the disk to such adjacent charge. This problem has been recognized in U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,382, issued to Ollivier et al on Sep. 9, 1986. In that patent there is shown a rotatable loader disk provided with a central orifice and a series of orifices for receiving propellant charges. The problem noted above is proposed to be solved by providing a series of holes arranged radially between the central orifice and the cartridge orifices. These additional holes are proposed to provide a means to form an obstacle to the propagation of mechanical stress related to the firing of one propellant charge. However, the placement of such additional series of holes adds additional cost and time to the manufacture of the magazine and reduces its rigidity.